Pop went the weasel and down went the Large Hadron Collider

One of the world’s most complex machines has been temporarily immobilised – by a weasel.

The world’s largest atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider at Cern outside Geneva, has suspended operations because a weasel invaded a transformer that helps power the machine and set off an electrical outage on Thursday night.

Authorities say the incident was one of several small glitches that will delay plans to restart the collider by a few days.

Spokesman Arnaud Marsollier said that the weasel died – and little remains of it.

Officials of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, known by its French acronym Cern, have been gearing up for new data from the 17-mile circuit that runs underground on the Swiss-French border.